


The Things We Never Had

by FindingMyPerhaps



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: (but not really one-sided), Angst, Ben is a sweetheart, Closeted Character, First Love, Grief/Mourning, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Memory Loss, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Secret Crush, You Have Been Warned, remembering, we're talkin' lots of hurt with a dash of comfort here folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 09:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20598599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FindingMyPerhaps/pseuds/FindingMyPerhaps
Summary: They say memory is a funny thing.For Richie Tozier, it’s fucking hilarious. Or, at least, it would be. To someone else.ORRichie can't understand why Eddie makes him feel the way that he does. Because he doesn't remember yet.





	The Things We Never Had

**Author's Note:**

> Literally saw IT: Chapter 2 and came straight home to write this, so yes, expect spoilers if you have not seen it. Unbeta'd because I couldn't stand to keep it in my drafts any longer than I could stand not writing it all at once. Any alterations to direct storyline/quotes are probably just my little easter eggs I added in for the sake of IT (1990) because I am a reasonable, nostalgic gay. 
> 
> This one's for Richie and Eddie, who deserve the best fix-it fic but definitely aren't getting it from me.
> 
> Enjoy! 
> 
> P.S. Yes, the title was taken from Africa by Toto. It felt right.

They say memory is a funny thing.

For Richie Tozier, it’s fucking hilarious. Or, at least, it would be. To someone else. 

Thing is, he was fine before it happened. Had a show lined up for the evening, an afterparty and a hotel room to go back to when it was all over. Take a few sleeping pills, maybe dream about bicycles and scraped knees—the same dream he’d been having all week. Not the weirdest thing he could dream about, but strange because, well, Richie can’t remember the last time he had a dream. Or even a dream he remembered after waking up.

So yeah, not the worst night. He was gonna go out there, face the audience and make them forget their troubles with the same shit they always write for him. Then maybe throw in his own lines because he’s Richie fucking Tozier and he always says the first thing that comes to his mind.

Then, not even five minutes before he’s supposed to go on stage, he gets a call. From Derry, Maine.

_ Why does that sound so familiar? _

He swipes to answer. And for some reason, when he presses the phone to his ear, he can’t think of a damn thing to say.

“Richie?”

Well, that was definitely him. “Yeah? Who’s this?”

“It’s Mike. Mike Hanlon.”

“_Mike? _” The name hits something deep inside him, almost makes him lose his breath with the force of it. He sees his face, the boy he knew when he was a kid. The one he grew up with. In Derry, Maine. 

Oh, _ fuck_. 

Mike’s speaking again, saying something. Richie swallows and tunes back in, his mouth suddenly far too dry and his palms getting sweaty. “You promised, Richie. We took an oath.”

Richie licks his lips, pushes his glasses back up. “Yeah, yeah, okay. I remember, just—when?”

“Tomorrow. Please, say you’ll come.”

An _ oath_. Richie feels something burning in the hand that doesn’t hold the phone, rubs it against his pants before he turns his palm up to look at it. That’s when he sees it, a scarred line in his palm. Did he always have that? He must have; he took an oath, _ the _ oath.

“Richie? Are you still there?”

“Fuck,” Richie breathes, then finishes it with a solid, “yeah.” He looks around because suddenly being backstage is not enough room to breathe. His eyes start darting for doors, and he moves for the closest one. “I’ll come, I just—I have to go. Just send me the details, I’ll be there.”

“Will d—”

“Bye, Mike.” He barely manages to hit the red button to end the call before he reaches the door that takes him outside, to a balcony where he throws up everything his body has to offer.

Again, it takes him a moment to register the sound of the voice fussing over him. It's his manager, as always, asking if he’s alright but insisting that he has to move, he has to be on in_ two minutes._

Richie straightens himself up and tells himself to just do it, he can say his lines even if his hands are shaking. He knows what to say, he’s done it all before, there’s nothing new here.

That’s when he goes out on stage and completely forgets everything. Then remembers something.

He skips the afterparty and gets a taxi to his hotel before he can think twice about letting his manager get involved in this, whatever ‘this’ is. 

No dreams come to him that night because he doesn’t sleep. Sleeping pills don’t do shit for him, and neither does the one drink he managed to stomach before bed. He doesn’t answer the door or his phone until the sun comes up, and only then to see what that Derry number sent him.

“Jesus _ fuck_.” It’s a long text, but it’s all there. Townhouse rooms already paid for, a dinner reservation not too far from it. He takes a shower before he gets dressed in clean clothes and packs a bag for the night. It’s not much, but it should be all he needs. It should be.

Richie almost forgets to grab his keys on the way out. When he’s finally behind the wheel, he finds miles of road ahead of him that offer him time to just think, to remember, if he can. He finds himself not remembering anything at all.

All he really knows for sure is that he can’t turn back now.

It’s only when he sees and passes the Derry sign that things really start to hit.

This was his hometown, the place he grew up in. He sees street names that he remembers all too well, with landmarks, stores and the theater he can’t believe he could ever forget about. The nostalgia of it makes his chest tight, but there’s still something missing. Richies knows this, but he doesn’t let himself dwell on it. Not now.

He goes straight to the restaurant because it’s best just to get the initial reunion thing over with, he thinks. Richie parks his car and kills the engine, but he doesn’t get out for another ten minutes, at least.

No, only when he sees them. There are two people who linger at the door, talking, smiling like they’re just seen someone from their past, someone they’re fond of. Richie adjusts his glasses out of habit more than anything, squints to get a good look at them. Something about them seems familiar, so he gets out of the car. 

That’s when he really sees them. He gets close enough to see their faces, and then he stops in his tracks because he _knows them_. 

Bev. Beverly and Ben. 

It’s strange, how easily he’s able to use his wit around them. Like old times. The times he didn’t remember at all before about five minutes ago.

If that shocks him, he’s not ready for what greets him inside the restaurant. 

There are three more of them, Mike with Bill and— and—

_ Eddie_.

When he meets his eyes, Richie stops speaking entirely. It’s short-lived, but it definitely happens because Richie remembers that face, now lined with age and the same constant worry he used to see on Eddie’s young features all the time. The burden of being a Kaspbrak, probably. 

Eddie Kaspbrak. One of his best friends.

One of the Losers Club.

By the time they get started on dinner, Richie’s getting bits and pieces of his memory back from all those years ago. It’s hard not to reminisce with them, especially when Eddie’s sitting next to him and he’s so much fun to pick on because he’ll raise his eyebrows and bicker back and forth with him until they get distracted by the others again.

So, he remembers doing that when they were younger. Maybe that’s why he’s so fond of him; he must have been his closest friend of the group.

Still, he knows he likes everyone he’s at the table with. They're catching up, talking about their achievements and their love lives. Eddie says he's married, and Richie can't help but ask if it's to a woman. It's all fun and games until they can’t reminisce about the good things anymore because Mike has something else to tell them. More puzzle pieces to Richie’s memory, to everyone’s memory. Things they'd apparently all forgotten. 

Now, they all had to remember.

Then, the fortune cookie thing happens, and then they find out that Stan didn't show up because he killed himself, and as far as Richie’s concerned, he’s fucking out.

Except that he isn’t.

Richie’s not really sure why he agreed to stay. He wants to think it has a lot more to do with Mike and Bill’s convincing little speech than the pull he feels towards Eds.

He thinks he might have an idea when they visit the old clubhouse, but he doesn’t really understand it until he’s back in that theater, seeking his token for the ritual Mike kept going on about. He puts his change in, collects the single token that pops out for use on the gaming machines that don’t even work anymore in the lobby. With that coin in his hand, he remembers something again.

An innocent crush. Just a few games, friendly competition that was just a little more than friendly on Richie’s end. But the look on the boy’s face when Henry Bowers showed up, the way his attitude changed and asked why Richie was being so weird. His words hurt, cut so deep that Richie didn’t have the words to defend himself; he just left the theater and went to the park to cry. It was so _ stupid _ but so devastating at the time in his youth. 

And the truth is, it scarred him. 

He retraces his footsteps from that day, token in his pocket and thoughts jumbled as every block he takes forces memories to the front of his mind. The town festival provides some form of background noise to drown some of his thoughts out, but there’s one thing he can’t stop thinking about.

Eddie. Eds. Eddie-spaghetti. 

He knows the truth. There’s a reason why he couldn’t stop looking at him, a reason why bickering with him made him feel both light and incredibly heavy at the same time. The reason why he made sure he got the room next to Eddie _ just in case._

Richie used to be in love with him.

Is _ still _in love with him.

He barely has time to dwell on it, sitting on that park bench the same as he had nearly thirty years ago, because suddenly Pennywise is _ there, _and it’s so incredibly real no matter how much Richie tries to tell himself that it isn’t. 

And that fucking clown knows. It knows his secret, knows the fucked up shit in his head that he couldn’t bury even after he left this God-forsaken town. The thing that’s a part of him, the kind of thing that he didn’t choose and could never truly run away from, no matter how many years he spent trying to. And then it asks, “_Should I tell them, Richie? _”

The only thing he manages to run away from that day is that fucking clown. As soon as he gets back to the townhouse, he doesn’t give a shit about anything except getting the hell out of dodge. Richie tells Beverly and Ben as soon as he’s through the doors, thankful that it’s only them and not Eddie standing in his way.

If it was Eddie sitting there on the steps, he might never leave. 

Richie doesn’t pay much attention to the sound of Ben following and calling after him. As far as he’s concerned, no one can stop him now. He has to leave, has to go back to the life he knew a couple days ago, where he had gigs and fans and cities to travel to. It was as simple as driving away, forgetting about all of this.

Forgetting about Eddie and the rest of the Losers Club and the bullshit oath they made when they were just kids.

Richie leaves the door open, just an inch. Ben knocks anyway.

“Don’t bother!” Richie calls out, only half-believing that Ben might listen to him.

Ben doesn’t, of course. The wooden door squeaks on its hinges as he pushes it open. “What did you see out there?”

“Nothing,” he answers just a little too quickly. “I didn’t see anything but this shithole of a town and everything it _ doesn’t _ have to offer.” Richie’s grabs his bag and starts looking for his clothes from the night before. His hands are shaking the same as they were after Mike called him.

“Richie, c’mon, man, it’s me you’re talking to. You _ can _ talk to me about it.”

“I don’t wanna fuckin’ talk!” He doesn’t mean it as harsh as it comes out, and the way that Ben’s eyes get all wide makes Richie feel like the shittiest friend in the world. He tries again, calmly, “I just… I can’t, Ben. And trust me, you don’t want to hear this shit.”

“Try me.” Ben closes the door behind him, granting them privacy. “What happened?”

Richie stares at him for a second because he knows he’s fucked, that he’s not getting out of this unless he convinces Ben that he’s staying. So he throws his bag down and sits on his bed, back to Ben so he can’t tell if he’s lying or not. “Like you don’t know what happened.”

“No, I know. You saw it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Richie breathes, and he can’t deny that it’s nice to be able to tell someone about it. That it happened, that it wasn’t real but it still _was._

“What did it say?”

The lump in his throat is hard to swallow around. “Nothing important.”

“Bullshit.” Ben takes a seat on the other side of the bed, and Richie can feel his eyes burning into the back of his head. “It said something that got to you, didn’t it? That’s what it does.”

“Yeah, so?” Richie turns to meet his eyes, and he can’t stand how kind they look. Inside, he doesn’t feel he deserves it. No one’s worried about him in years besides his manager. “Do I look like I give a shit what that clown has to say?”

For a second, Ben looks like he might crack a smile, but he fights back the laugh. “You do, actually.”

“Well, maybe you’ve been looking in the mirror too much, pretty boy.”

That one makes Ben smile. Richie likes to see it, likes to know that there’s still some kind of joy inside his friends, no matter how haunted they were. “Maybe. But you know you can tell me.”

Richie can feel himself pale at the idea of it, those words coming back to the front of his mind: _ Should I tell them, Richie? _

“Richie?” 

Richie looks at Ben with wide eyes. “He said he wanted to play a game,” he confesses.

“What kind of game?”

Again, Richie swallows before he answers. “Street Fighter.”

Ben narrows his eyes at him, and Richie can see his mind working to figure out if he’s joking or not. “That’s all?”

“No,” Richie finds himself answering before he can even remember how to lie. “He wanted to play truth or dare.”

Ben raises his eyebrows, somehow believing this more. “Was he gonna dare you to do something?”

“He wanted me to pick truth.” Richie turns back away from Ben because now he really can’t let him see him. He takes his glasses off and cleans them on his shirt as an excuse so he can blink away the tears that force their way into his eyes. 

Ben’s silent for a few moments. Richie hates it, but not as much as he hates the truth of Ben’s next words. “He was taunting you with your secrets.”

Richie doesn’t answer him; he just puts his glasses back on and looks to the window.

“He did the same thing with me.”

It’s Richie’s turn to smile, almost unable to believe that Ben had any secrets. “What’s your secret, you enjoy a few carbs every now and then?”

“Beep beep, Richie.” He says it with the hint of a laugh, but Richie knows he’s serious because this is supposed to be a serious conversation. “I trust you, so I’ll tell you--only you. I, uh… Well. I’ve been in love with Beverly since the first time I laid eyes on her.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“_Richie_.” Ben waits for Richie to turn to him before he speaks again. “Look, that’s what it used against me. So, whatever your secret is, it shouldn’t matter.”

“That’s the thing!” Richie’s up on his feet in an instant, defensive as ever as he looks Ben in the face. “It _ does _ matter! And that stupid fucking clown threatened to tell all of you, so you know what? I’d like to get the fuck out of here before any of you Losers find out just what kind of freak I am! Before _ Eddie _finds out that I— that I—”

And fuck, if Ben wasn’t worried before, he’s definitely worried, now. Richie’s crying now, to the point that he has to take off his glasses to wipe at his cheeks, destroy the evidence. Ben gets up from the bed slowly, as if he’s going to comfort him, but they both stop when they hear voices coming from downstairs.

Bill’s voice, urgent. 

Richie puts his glasses on, wipes at his nose one last time with his sleeve. Like nothing happened. “You should go see what that’s about.”

Ben looks like he wants to stay, but they both know that whatever Bill’s hollering about downstairs has to be more important than this little therapy session of theirs. “Promise you won’t leave?”

Richie puts his hands up in surrender, to which Ben just nods before he head for the door and rushes down the stairs towards the voices. 

So, things didn’t go exactly as he planned. Nevertheless, he still got Ben out of his room, so he doesn’t hesitate before he closes his bedroom door and grabs his bag again. He’s much quicker now because he all but told Ben about his secret a minute ago, so he really has to get the fuck out of here—_now_.

He’s got his bag in one hand and his keys in the other. Richie knows he can’t go downstairs, so he just goes straight for the window because fuck it. He’s lucky to find a wooden balcony built into the building not far below his window, and from there, he manages to spot and find his way to his car. 

If only he had paid a little more attention to the old familiar car that was parked and running just a few spaces over.

Richie doesn’t even reach the city limits before he makes a stop for the sake of a memory, for the sake of Stanley’s memory. 

He can’t believe he really forgot about the day of Stanley’s bar mitzvah. The speech that Stanley gave that day was one for the books, especially with Stanley’s mic drop at the end. Richie remembers it clearly, now, every word and every hidden meaning to them.

They were all best friends, all six of the others in the Losers Club. They did everything together. In fact, the only times Richie ever found himself alone in the streets were the times he took the long way home. He remembers that route because it always came to the kissing bridge, where lovers carved their names and initials into the wooden railing on each side of the road.

Richie remembers carving his and Eddie’s initials there, then riding his bike back home before anyone could see him doing it.

He goes to the library after that. That’s where Mike wanted to meet, so that’s where he goes. No point in denying it anymore; he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t leave them.

That’s when he finds Bowers pinning Mike down to the ground with a knife to his chest. Richie sees the ax from the broken display case on the ground and doesn’t hesitate; he grabs it and swings it right at the back of Henry’s head, killing him instantly.

Richie literally kills a man, tells a really bad pun, and then throws up. In that order.

To make things worse, Eddie walks in to see it. He follows Ben and Beverly, and there’s a bloody square of gauze taped to his left cheek. 

But the first priority is finding Bill because apparently he dipped out around the same time that Richie did in the townhouse. They manage to call him, but the conversation is as short as Bill’s temper. 

All Richie knows is that they have to follow him to the house on Neibolt street. That’s where Bill’s going, and that’s where they’ll find it. And _ kill. It. _

“Let’s kill this fucking clown,” is for all of them, including Stan.

The house looks the same as it did the last time they were in there. “I love what he’s done with the place,” Richie tries to cut through the eerie atmosphere, earning a “beep beep, Richie” out of Beverly before anyone else can say it.

Richie just shrugs, stays close to Eddie. They follow after Bill into a room, only for Ben to gasp in sudden pain and the door between them shut entirely.

Shit was just getting started.

The fucking thing is terrifying as it scurries after all of them, but they manage to kick it out of the room through a hole in the wall. With time to breathe, Richie goes to Eddie, who’s standing in the corner looking terrified as hell.

“Are you okay?” Richie asks because he knows Bill’s fine, he always is. This is Eddie, though, and the look on his face makes Richie worry more than anything.

Eddie can’t even get a word out before the spider’s back again. It jumps from the ceiling as soon as they see it, latches onto Richie’s face and knocks him onto the ground. He knows it’s not really Stan trying to bite his face off, that it’s just an illusion, a trick. But Richie was terrified, screaming and trying to force it off of his face.

Bill doesn’t hesitate, ever the brave one as he plants his feet on both sides of Richie’s body and tries to pull it off of him. Richie’s vaguely aware of his yelling, telling Eddie to grab something. Grab the knife, kill the spider. But Richie’s a little busy trying to pry the fucking thing off of himself, so he can’t think too much on it. He does manage to see Eddie out of the corner of his vision, through the space between the spider legs that refuse to let go of his head. What he sees makes him lose his breath entirely.

Eddie’s looks helpless, terrified as he just stares, eyes wide and unblinking as he sinks further into the corner.

Richie thinks if he’s going to die, it had better be then.

It happens in the blink of an eye. The knife goes through Stan’s head, through the spider-creature-thing or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be. Ben’s the one with the knife in his hand, and he does it again, again, and again.

It doesn’t kill it, but it gets it off of Richie and out the fucking door. Injured, but bound to come back.

He’s grateful for the help they give him to help him get himself together, but Richie wishes he didn’t have to see Bill yell at Eddie for not helping. It wasn’t his fault, he knows it isn’t. He makes a point of letting him know that once they find their way to it’s hideout.

It’s easy enough to find the well, but not entirely easy getting down and into it. Thee water levels get higher with almost every step, and their flashlights can only offer so much guidance in such fast tunnels. 

They perform the ritual. Richie throws his token into the fire, same as everyone else. They all do the chant, follow what Mike says. It works.

And then it really, really fucking doesn’t.

It was never going to work. Pennywise shows up just to tell them that before it sets out for all of them, splitting them up one by one. Richie goes with Eddie, the two of them running together until they’re faced with three doors, three choices of very scary, scary, and not scary at all. 

It’s trial and error, but they figure it out, and Richie leads them the hell away from that. The clown abandons them, likely to focus on the others if they’ve been separated completely. Richie leads them back to where they came from, quick on his feet before he finds it and with its weird fucking tentacle wrapped around Mike, its mouth open and ready to eat him alive.

Richie does the first thing that comes to his mind. He grabs a rock by his feet, and he throws it as hard as it can against that giant fucking head.

“Hey, fuckface! Wanna play truth or dare? Here’s a truth: you’re a sloppy bitch!”

Pennywise growls and turns in his direction, throwing Mike elsewhere. Richie grabs another rock by his feet.

“Yeah, that’s right! Let’s dance! Yippee ki-yay, motherf--” 

Everything goes white. Richie loses himself entirely to the deadlights, his body going limp as the light just raises him up from the ground, levitates him. But he can’t feel that; he doesn’t know that. You don’t know anything when you’re in the deadlights. 

Richie doesn’t know how long it lasts, but when he wakes, he’s lying on his back and Eddie’s looking over him, smiling and babbling with excitement about how he did it, he thinks he really killed it this time.

He speaks too soon. Richie doesn’t have the time to form the words before there’s suddenly a claw protruding from Eddie’s shirt, blood spurting from the wound staining his shirt. Blood splatters onto Richie's chest, his chin and up the side of his face. He sees in red, Eddie's blood spotting his glasses, and all he can see is the look on Eddie's face. Richie wants to scream, but he can’t. All he can do is look at Eddie, mouth agape as they look into each other's eyes. And oh, the sadness in those brown eyes.

“Richie?” Eddie says his name so softly, so _ hurt_. Blood pours from his mouth, stains his lips as it drips down his chin. “_Richie?_”

Richie moves to grab him, but it drags him back first, taking Eddie away from him. It swings him around for a moment before Eddie’s swung into a gap in the rocks. They all get up to run, barely managing to rush in after Eddie while Pennywise continued trying to snatch them up.

Richie reaches him first, but he’s at a loss. The others help Eddie to sit up, and all Richie can think to do is take off his leather jacket and crouch down to press the bundle of it to Eddie’s chest where the wound gapes like a glaring eye, accusing and cruel.

“You guys, he’s hurt really bad. W-We gotta get him out of here.” Richie’s desperate, terrified more now of losing his best friend than killing that fucking clown.

It’s obvious they can’t get out the way they came. It’s clawing at the rocks, calling to them through the gap, taunting them. Eddie starts to speak, and Richie listens carefully to what he says, how he says it so soft so as not to waste his breath.

He brings up the leper, how he choked it when it attacked him, how weak it became, how small.

It reminds Mike of something he learned from the natives, the notion that all living things must abide by the laws of the shape they inhabit. Make it small, make it easy to kill.

Ben finds a passageway for them, and both Ben and Richie help Eddie to stand so they can get him out of there. No Loser left behind.

The passage leads to another hole in the cave where it first hit, but they’re able to hide behind the rock that protrudes from the rest of the wall, only a short distance away from the clown. Richie gets down to look over Eddie, says his name and keeps his jacket pressed to the wound. 

“Richie,” Eddie rasps around the blood in his mouth, “I gotta tell you something.”

Oh, _ shit_. Richie’s hyperaware of the others standing around them, of Ben looking at Eddie over his shoulder. But now, he zeroes in on Eddie’s words, what he’s going to say. “What?” Richie whispers like it’s a secret, between just the two of them.

His heart races in his chest, loud in his ears. 

“I fucked your mother.”

Any other time, Richie would have laughed. Might have come up with something witty to say to that, but now is not the time. Eddie gives a laugh but only ends up coughing up more blood, so Richie just shakes his head and keeps the pressure on the wound with one hand, the other on Eddie’s shoulder.

The other four make a run for it. Richie knows Eddie can’t run like this, knows he’ll probably have to carry his little ass out of here once it’s dead, and only if they don’t all die first. 

“Give me your hand.” Richie reaches for Eddie’s before he can protest, places it over his bundled up jacket. “We have to keep the pressure on it. Have to, Eds.”

“What did I say about you calling me that?” Eddie’s teasing is light-hearted and Richie doesn’t move his hand from where it rests over his on the jacket. They watch from where they are as Pennywise stops them from reaching the exit, from completing their initial plan to make it small. That’s when they start talking back, calling it a clown, an old woman, a headless boy. Everything it’s ever been to amount to something weak, something no one’s really scared of.

Richie joins into the voices when they start shouting, knowing Eddie can’t make the effort in the state he’s in. “_A dumb fucking clown!_”

It starts to work. Its form starts changing just as it did last time, first with its head and then with its body as it shrunk smaller and smaller, retreating into the point of impact where it made its cocoon in its arrival to Earth. 

Richie sees his chance. He reluctantly lets go of Eddie and stomps over to where the other have Pennywise cornered. No words are necessary as he just reaches for the arm that pierced Eddie and rips it right off of its body. 

It gets smaller and smaller, and then Mike reaches down with his hand to reach into its chest and rip out its heart. It’s black and beats hard in his palm. One by one, they all put their hands around the mass of it and squeeze, destroy it before its own eyes.

What’s left of its body starts to grow black, as everything around it does. 

When they release the heart, what remains of it begins to float like ashes from a fire, up and up until it joins the last remaining specks of the deadlights that flicker and go out like embers that followed.

Bill embraces Mike, and Bev puts her head against Ben’s shoulder.

Richie remembers Eddie.

“Oh! Eddie! _Eddie!_” He turns around and rushes back to him, finds him exactly as he left him. The others follow, but Richie’s there first, always first to Eddie when he can be. He smiles, tries to get Eddie to look at him, tries to talk to him, tell him that they did it, they killed it. Richie’s hand finds his face, caresses his cheek and finds him cold, colder than he should be. Eddie doesn’t move his eyes to look at him. Eddie doesn’t move at all.

Someone tries to say that he’s gone, but Richie can't hear them. He just insists that he’s hurt, that they have to get him to a hospital. But the ground beneath them starts rumbling, shaking them where they stand. 

“Richie.” Beverly sniffles through her tears, and Richie hangs his head before he can look back at her.

“What?”

“Honey… he’s dead. We have to go.”

Richie looks back at Eddie, at his jacket still clutched in his lifeless hand. All of those years he forgot, every memory they shared seemed to flash before his very eyes: every single moment he would never get to revisit again with this man, the one he loved, his very first love.

The ground really starts to shake, but Richie’s already spinning. He grabs Eddie and pulls him in, holds him close and buries his face in his neck, one hand cradling his head while the other clutches at his bloody shirt. 

“I love you,” Richie whispers in his ear, hoping that somehow he’ll hear it, that it’s not too late to let him know. “Always you, Eds.”

He doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want to leave him, but the others are pulling on him because they refuse to leave him behind just the same as he refuses to leave Eddie behind. Richie doesn’t want to let go, so they literally drag him away, all while he keeps screaming, “We can still help him! Guys, we can still help him!”

His cries are ignored for the sake of his life, so he follows them while everything around them starts to crumble, to float and fall apart. Richie looks back only once, but he doesn’t see Eddie, only debris as it falls behind them and closes the path back.

They climb out of the hideout, out of the well and somehow manage to make it out of the house before it falls in on them. It’s daylight outside, blinding them as they find the road, turning to watch the house continue to fall apart. 

Once it starts collapsing, Richiestarts screaming. “No! Eddie!” He tries to make a run for the house, but Mike and Ben grab ahold of him first, holding him back as he keeps screaming Eddie’s name, desperate and utterly devastated.

The house collapses on itself entirely, leaving nothing above the ground. Richie keeps shouting Eddie's name, calling to him until his voice is hoarse, and he collapses on his knees in the road. He looks at the plot of land, of the dust that flows up from the debris of the house. He looks at nothing but a grave for the man he loves.

Richie doesn’t say a word again until they find themselves at the quarry. They take off their shoes and go in one by one, led by Beverly, as always. Richie props himself upon a boulder in the water, so he can sit and think and wash himself off all at once. He takes his glasses off and starts to clean them, but then he sees the blood there. Eddie’s blood, dried and stuck to the glass as proof of what happened down there.

To make matters worse, the others start talking about him. About how he would hate washing off in dirty water, how he would fuss and worry over them as he always did.

“Ain’t that right, Richie?”

It’s all Richie can take. He puts a hand on his forehead, shields his eyes from them as he just lets it out. A broken sob forces its way past his lips, out into the open for all of them to hear, to witness him breaking down after everything. 

They all come to him. Mike puts his hands on his shoulders, and Bill swims over to take his hand in his. Beverly wraps her arm around his on the other side, and Ben comes over to do the same, resting a hand on his knee.

Richie drops his glasses without realizing, turning his face towards Mike and Bill as he lets himself cry. Their touch grounds him, centers him like nothing else can anymore, and he finds it in himself to calm down.

He sniffles, blinks his eyes open and tries to look at them. “I don’t have my glasses on, so I don’t know who you people are, but thank you.”

That makes them smile, gets a few laughs out of them. They all start out on looking for his glasses, heads going underwater as they tried to locate them for him.

Alone above the surface, Richie just smiles to himself. Because after all, they won. They were free.

Eddie was free.

They find his glasses, and Richie washes them off for good. They’re cracked, but he knows he’ll live, just as long as he can still see where he’s going.

They get out of the water and find their way back up to the cliff to collect their shoes and other belongings before they head back into town. Richie can only imagine the sight of them--five grown adults, battered and clothes still partially dirty and torn from the night of hell they’d just been through.

They stop only once to catch a glimpse of themselves in the reflection of a shop window, and Richie can see them--all of them, all seven of the losers club with their bikes at their sides and a special kind of innocence only reserved for those who lose theirs perhaps a little too early.

They all make to the townhouse safe and sound. Everyone grabs a shower, but Richie goes into Eddie’s room and cleans the blood off of the floor there. He sees Eddie’s suitcases and doesn’t think twice before he’s grabbing them, hauling them to his room. He left Eddie in that house, but he doesn’t have to leave the rest of him here.

After he showers, they all meet at the main entrance to say their goodbyes. Richie swears he’s never felt so much love in one room in his entire life, so much relief in every embrace, every word of good-bye. They all exchange numbers, details to keep in contact and remember in case they somehow forget again.

Richie doesn’t promise to answer every call, but he knows he will. In a heartbeat.

If any of them see him loading Eddie’s bags into his car, none of them say anything. They don’t even mention that the jacket he’s wearing looks a little too small for him, a little not-his-style. Richie wonders if they know already, why he does what he does and feels what he feels. Maybe best friends just know these things. Maybe best friends don’t care either way.

There’s just one last stop to make before Richie leaves town. 

It’s out of the way, but he doesn’t care. He parks his car just a few feet from where the bridge begins, contemplates whether or not he should get out or just keep moving down the road, past memory lane and out of Derry for good.

Richie gets out of the car.

The kissing bridge doesn’t look much different than it did all those years ago. The same wooden railing is there, but almost all of the paint is gone by now. Old names and initials carved here have worn away a great deal, replaced by new ones here and there.

Richie knows what to look for, and he finds it with ease. He crouches down to look at what he’d carved so long ago, evidence that his memories were all real, the feelings more real than anything else. Richie smiles, tears in his eyes, and takes out his pocket knife. He opens it in his palm and takes it to the wood so he can trace over his handiwork one last time.

**R + E**

Always Richie and Eddie._ Always you, Eds_.

Richie closes the knife and admires the carvings, almost wants to take a picture of it so he’ll never forget. He resists the urge and pockets the knife one last time, then stands and looks for only a little longer.

He’s had his fill of Derry, he decides. It’s time to leave.

It’s not hard to find his way out of the town, but it’s even harder to forget about it. No matter how far he drives, how far away he gets from Derry, Maine and the memories he leaves behind, they stay with him.

With an open road and a thousand miles ahead of him, Richie cherishes every memory he gets to keep this time. Memories of those kids on their bikes, of long summer days and endless fun despite all of the bad. He thinks of the smiles, the laughs, the love.

The asthmatic boy that somehow always managed to take Richie’s breath away. 

It’s all over, now. Gone but never forgotten; not this time.

Richie likes to think that the world makes a little more sense, now. Something inside of him definitely does. Because Eddie was buried with that house, but he lived on in Richie’s house of memories, close to his heart and embedded in his soul. And he’ll carry that with him, always.

Because if there’s anything Richie’s ever learned from life, from the things he’s been through and the things he’s seen…

The show must go on.

And so, it does.


End file.
